Man Grows Cotton In Harlem To Teach Kids About Slavery

The 78-year-old also grows peanuts, okra and peaches in the quickly gentrifying nabe.

The name of the 1970 Ossie Davis-directed Blaxploitation film, Cotton Comes To Harlem, has taken on a new twist in 2016.

Willie Morgan, who hails from Georgia, grows actual cotton in Harlem to teach children in his neighborhood about slavery. Cotton, of course, was the cash crop that allowed the United States to flourish in capitalism during the 19th century. The free labor of enslaved people allowed the country’s economy to grow by leaps and bounds.

“I tell the kids … that the jeans they’re wearing come from cotton. They don’t know anything about it,” he said in a recent interview with the Independent. “I give them the cotton and they can take it into their classes.”

“This is what slavery was about. They did not have machines. They needed people to pick it…[That way] they know about the cotton, they know what their forefathers did,” he said.

Morgan plants the seeds in June, and harvests them in September and October. He also plants peanuts, collard greens, okra, onions and stevia in his own plot of land not too far from the statue of Harriet, also known as Black Moses.